11/19/16,
“Cornwall”
St Agnes,
Cornwall, England, United Kingdom (Wheal Coates)
This is not
a site most tourists go to. Why did I
come here? Well, as I explained in last
night’s entry, the answer is quite simple.
Because it’s there! That is the
reason for all of the sites of this trip, and it is the reason I have driven
five hours here from Heathrow and will drive another five hours back to my
hotel in London. This was it for the
day. Just this one site. It is very familiar to the when I came to
London in January 2014, a similar drive into the west, similar weather,
too. Last time it was the Dorset Coast,
this time Cornwall. Just to take a few
pictures, write this entry, and drive back.
Why? Because it’s there. I have lots more to say, but it is cold and
raining, and I want to get back to my car, so I will be brief.
After I closed, I soon boarded the plane,
falling asleep as soon as we took off, waking up for dinner, which was quite
good and consisted of beef, potatoes, wine, and cheesecake. I slept again until breakfast, granola and
coffee. Once we landed, I made my way
through the familiar airport and to Hertz.
Okay, the rain is really picking up.
There was still an issue with DNR, but they overrode it once I showed
them proof of payment of the open invoice.
I lit up a Davidoff Yamasa Toro and put on Red. I was on my way, stopping for an English
breakfast, the usual stuff, en route, then having a Graycliff. After Red, I switched to my favorite Avril
album. I was dead tired, to the point of
no longer driving safely, so I pulled to a rest station for a nap after the
cigar. I lit up a Carlos Torano and was
back on the around, only to start to fall asleep again. I stopped for another nap after that
cigar. I then got a traditional Cornish
Pasty with wedges and espresso at the rest stop. I lit up a Gurkha and soon entered into
Cornwall. It looked like everything I
imagined it to look like. It was
raining, and I knew that would pose a challenge. I got to Wheal Coates and geared up for the
walk.
With some difficulty, I found the
spot for the inscription photo, lit up a Romeo y Julieta and took a ceremonial
picture. What about my entry? Where would I write that? Well, I realized that the ruins in the
picture would provide good shelter, so I headed towards them. They did.
I hugged up against the wall inside one of those ruins and sat down,
where I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can
back to the shelter of my car and drive to London with no further ado.
London,
England, United Kingdom
Five months
ago, almost to the day, from this very spot I wrote a very different
entry. It was an entry of a
failure. I rarely write entries of that
type. Few people measure their travels
in terms like failure and success. I
do. Whether I failed or succeeded at my
goals matters far more to me than whether or not I enjoyed the trip. In fact, when I wrote that entry of failure,
it was after a highly enjoyable evening with my best friend, someone whom I’ve
come to love as a sister but hadn’t seen in almost two years. If enjoyment was the criteria, it would have
been a different entry, but no, it’s not, “Because it would be fun”, it’s,
“Because it’s there!”
In fact, in those
past five months, I have spent two very enjoyable evenings with her in New
York, no need to travel to do that. No,
that trip was an abject failure, and it was all my fault. A car accident that was my fault, which was
only compounded by oversleeping two mornings in a row. I failed.
There were no other words. That
was not necessitated this trip. Tomorrow
I will visit the sites that I missed in June, then, Monday, I will visit the
remaining sites on the island of Great Britain.
“Because it’s there!” will be the reason I visit each and every one of
those sites over the next two days. Today was a success, but there was nothing enjoyable about today. It was brutal.
The day has come to a close, and now, here I
am smoking my 2006 Christmas Pipe, the same pipe I have smoked to start off so
many other great trips. The same pipe I
smoked in New Delhi to start off that Thanksgiving trip, the same pipe I smoked
in Toronto, Ushuaia, and Beijing to start off those Christmas trips, and, now,
I’m starting it in London to start off this Thanksgiving trip. This trip is so similar to the one I took in
January 2014. During that trip, I flew
into LHR, went to Bath, Stonehenge, and Dorset, came back to The Savoy, had
dinner at a great restaurant, stayed overnight at The Savoy, went to Olympic
Stadium (or two) in the morning, then made my way to Scotland and flew home
from Edinburgh.
Today, I went to
Cornwall instead of those other sites, and I will be making my way to Liverpool
tomorrow and flying out of Manchester on Monday, instead of Edinburgh. I am glad to have seen Cornwall, even if for
no other reason than because it’s there, and I would have loved to have had
more time, but today was just such a shitty day. I succeeded, though, and that’s all that
counts. I didn’t get enough sleep on the
day, and that messed everything up, since I had to keep stopping for naps, and
I wasn’t fully rested. I’ll be lucky to
get 6 hours of sleep tonight, but that should be enough for a recharge. Tomorrow is looking like another 6-hour night,
too, depending on my evening activities in Liverpool.
After I closed at Cornwall, I headed back to
the car and could not wait to get back on the road. It was still raining, and sunset was fast
approaching. I would have liked to get
an authentic Cornish game hen, but even that wasn’t an option, as the restaurants
would not open for dinner until 6 PM, and I could not wait that long. I stopped for a nap then lit up a Nub. I was listening to BBC at this point, which
was a welcome break from Taylor and Avril.
The top story of the day was the offensive attack on Vice
President-Elect Pence at a Broadway show.
BBC did an excellent job reporting on it with the highest standard of
neutrality. I then stopped at a McDonald’s
for a late lunch or whatever it was, but it was a very different menu from back
home. It was quite good.
I lit up a Blind Man’s Bluff and took another
nap after the cigar. My reader should
note that each nap I am recording was the result of me being certain I would
fall asleep at the wheel if I didn’t take the nap. Driving on the left was no longer an issue,
but my tiredness absolutely was. After
the nap, I lit up an Aging Room and made my way straight to the hotel, hitting
the all-too-familiar brutal traffic as I entered London. It was after 10 PM by the time I arrived at
the hotel.
This is the fourth trip I
have taken to Britain, and I have stayed at The Savoy each time. I know no other hotels in London. I think it would be safe to say that this is
the hotel in the world where I have spent the most nights, probably also the
one where I have stayed on the most trips, as well, four trips now to
London. I checked in and learned that
the Gordon Ramsay restaurant would be serving dinner until 11 PM. I relaxed a bit in the room and then headed
down.
They had a “Vesper Martini” on the
menu, which I ordered, of course, “shaken, not stirred”. The waitress had no idea what I meant. How the fuck do you serve a drink that was
invented by Ian Fleming and not know his most famous quote?!? The steaks sounded really good, but I did not
feel a need to get steak at a fancy London restaurant. I could get better steaks back home. What can Gordon Ramsay do with grilled steaks
that a good steakhouse in NYC cannot do?
Instead, I got the seafood cocktail and then the venison for my main
course, just like I did on my last two fancy meals in London. It was quite good, but the portions were way
too small. It didn’t matter. I was full by the end of the meal.
I headed up to the room and made my
preparations, including changing into more comfortable clothes and filling up
my 2006 Christmas Pipe. I then headed
down to the same spot where I wrote in June and tried to light up my pipe, but
the wind wasted my pack of matches.
Fortunately, the doorman had a lighter, and that worked. I then headed to my spot, where I sat down
and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish
and get some sleep.
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